The present invention relates generally to percussion machines or apparatus comprising a driver member driven by the expansion of gases following the ignition of an explosive mixture in a combustion chamber imparting powerful driving or striking movement to the driver member.
In this application, relative terms such as "top" or "upper", and "bottom" or "lower" are used with reference to a machine positioned as shown in the accompanying drawings. However, it will be evident that the machine will function in any desired orientation.
In a known type of such machines there is included a drive member adapted according to requirements and associated with an operating piston movable in a cylinder between a retracted position and an advanced position.
Various different ways of driving the operating piston have already been proposed; for example, systems which use compressed air as an energy source, devices driven by electricity, or the use of an explosive mixture introduced into the cylinder and adapted to powerfully drive the percussion member in such a manner that the latter operates effectively.
My U.S. Pat. No. 3,042,008 issued on July 3, 1962 describes a striking machine and the percussion machines of the type in which an explosive mixture is fired to produce the energy required to drive the driver member of the machine.
On the whole, such machines have been found to give satisfactory results, but certain difficulties have been encountered in their industrial development and manufacture for lack of a model which is suitable for widescale distribution and is both competitive and perfectly reliable.